Charity the NSPCC has launched a new campaign to promote children’s online safety.
The ‘Share Aware’ campaign will provide advice to parents of children between eight and 12 years old. This will suggest steps parents need to take in order to protect their children and how best to talk to them about the internet.
As part of the campaign, a panel of 500 people from parenting website Mumsnet reviewed 48 sites which are aimed at older teenagers. The NSPCC claims these sites “too easy for children under 13 to sign-up to”. Three quarters of the parents on the panel reported finding “sexual, violent, or other inappropriate content” within 30 minutes of logging onto such sites.
Social media is a major focus of the campaign. The NSPCC claims that one in five children between eight and 11 years old who use the internet have a social media profile. The campaign aims to help parents communicate the importance of being vigilant on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
“Children are taught from an early age that it is good to share but doing so online can be very dangerous”, said Peter Wanless, the CEO of the NSPCC.
He added that children can often “take risks online, sometimes without realising it” so educating them about online safety was very important. Wanless said that the campaign sought to help parents who may “feel confused by the internet”.
Last year, research found that more children are bullied online than in face-to-face situations.
For more information on the NSPCC campaign, click here.
Photo by Intel Free Press via Flickr
